Specification for the Tag Code and Route Code barcodes

Josh Walker made this Freedom of Information request to Royal Mail Group Limited

The request was refused by Royal Mail Group Limited.

From: Josh Walker

29 May 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand that Royal Mail sometimes prints a "Tag Code" barcode
and/or a "Route Code" barcode on items that are posted.
Furthermore, I understand that these barcodes are used by Royal
Mail's sorting machines to process letters automatically.

I would like to know the specification for both the "Tag Code" and
the "Route Code" barcodes. By this I mean: details of what data
items they contain, how the data items are encoded into the barcode
format, etc.

I also understand that you have published the specification for
both the "Customer Barcode (CBC)" [1] and the "RED TAG" barcode
[2]. Ideally, I would like your answer to my request to describe
the "Tag Code" and the "Route Code" barcodes in the same level of
detail as you have described the "Customer Barcode (CBC)" and the
"RED TAG" barcode.

Yours faithfully,

Josh Walker

1. pages 75 to 81 of
ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/cmwalk/doc/active/doc8100005/Know%20How%20User%20Manual%206%20April%2009.pdf

2.
ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/cmwalk/doc/active/doc34800004/RED%20TAG%20Mailpiece%20Requirements%20V.2.pdf

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From: Josh Walker

27 June 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand that under the Freedom of Information Act Royal Mail
should have replied by now, and therefore you are breaking the law.

I would like you to answer my request as a matter of most urgency.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sp...

Yours faithfully,

Josh Walker

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Royal Mail Group Limited

29 June 2009

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Dear Mr Walker

Thank you for your recent email with regards to the above Freedom of
Information request.

We are not yet in a position to be able to respond to your request.
However, please be assured that your request is receiving our fullest
attention, and we hope to be in a position to provide you with a full
response shortly

Yours sincerely

John Cere
Freedom of Information Case Officer
[1][Royal Mail Group request email]

Josh Walker
<[FOI #12615 email]> To: FOI
Sent by: Josh Walker requests at Royal Mail Group
<[FOI #12615 email]> <[Royal Mail Group request email]>
cc:
27/06/2009 10:12 Subject: Re:
Freedom of Information
request - Specification for
the Tag Code and Route Code
barcodes

Dear Sir or Madam,
I understand that under the Freedom of Information Act Royal Mail
should have replied by now, and therefore you are breaking the law.

I would like you to answer my request as a matter of most urgency.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
[2]http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sp...

Yours faithfully,
Josh Walker

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Royal Mail Group Limited

30 June 2009

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Dear Mr Walker

Freedom of Information Request

I'm writing in response to your email of 29^th May 2009, in which you
requested information relating to barcodes printed on post. You asked for
the following information:

1. I understand that Royal Mail sometimes prints a "Tag Code"
barcode and/or a "Route Code" barcode on items that are posted.
Furthermore, I understand that these barcodes are used by Royal Mail's
sorting machines to process letters automatically.

2. I would like to know the specification for both the "Tag Code"
and the "Route Code" barcodes. By this I mean: details of what data items
they contain, how the data items are encoded into the barcode format, etc.

3. I also understand that you have published the specification for
both the "Customer Barcode (CBC)" [1] and the "RED TAG" barcode [2].
Ideally, I would like your answer to my request to describe the "Tag Code"
and the "Route Code" barcodes in the same level of detail as you have
described the "Customer Barcode (CBC)" and the "RED TAG" barcode.

Based on the information included in your email, we understood your
request to concern the two orange fluorescent codes that Royal Mail
applies to letter mail. Our engineering department have provided an
explanation of these barcodes:

The Royal Mail Flats Sorting Machines use a contrast 4 state tag code to
uniquely identify each mailpiece for 1 month.

The information encoded in the Tag code is:-

- The 3 digit number to identify the Mail Centre that applied the Tag Code
- The 1 digit number to identify the serial number of the Sorting Machine
within that Mail Centre that applied the Tag Code (This is normally = to
1)
- The Date of the month that the tag code was applied
- The Half Hour Period within the day that the tag code was applied
- The Sequence number of the mailpiece within the half hour period.

- The 37 bits of data in the Tag Code are combined with a 3 bit checksum
(modulo 8) to give 40 bits.
- These 40 bits are represented by a sequence of 44 four state bars after
encoding using a Reed- Solomon mechanism for the detection and correction
of reading errors.

The encoding and decoding algorithms are proprietary to Royal Mail but are
provided in the form of software supplied under license. We believe that
this information constitutes a 'trade secret' of the third party licensor
and is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 43 of the Freedom of
Information Act. The use of this exemption is subject to the public
interest test. However, we believe that the public interest is best
served by withholding the information. The information is of purely
technical nature which would not inform any public debate over the
provision of mail services or increase transparency in any decision making
process. Further, it is not in the public interest to undermine the
commercial value of this information.

Conditions of the license for this information are also such that, we
understand it would be a breach of confidence for Royal Mail to release
the data. We believe this information is therefore also exempt under
Section 41 of the Freedom of Information Act. This is an absolute
exemption and not subject to the public interest test.

I hope you find the information provided useful but, if you have any
further requests please do contact me. If you are unhappy with our
decision to withhold some information you do have a right to request an
internal review. In which case please write to the Head of Information
Compliance, Royal Mail Group, Company Secretary's Office, 100 Victoria
Embankment, LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ. An internal panel will then review this
response, and you will be advised of the outcome.

If, having requested an internal review by Royal Mail, you are still not
satisfied with our response you also have a right of appeal to the
Information Commissioner at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

John Cere
Freedom of Information Case Officer
Company Secretary's Office
[1][Royal Mail Group request email]

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From: Josh Walker

7 July 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Royal Mail Group's
handling of my FOI request 'Specification for the Tag Code and
Route Code barcodes'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sp...

I would like the internal review to consider all of the following
points, as well as any other points that are relevant.

One. I believe that the public interest test applied by Royal Mail
was woefully inadequate. I believe that the public interest test
should have been applied in a similar way to below.

The following factors are in favour of disclosure:

(a) From the limited information Royal Mail provided, I understand
that the "Tag Code" barcode is printed onto letters very early in
the sorting process, and furthermore that it contains the date of
month when this happened. Letters sent through the post tend to be
dated. If Royal Mail disclosed the information then it would allow
the public to obtain the date that the letter was sorted by Royal
Mail, and hence verify the date on the letter. This would stop
companies printing incorrect dates on their letters, and then
blaming "delays in the post" when questioned about it.

(b) Similarly to above, if Royal Mail disclosed the information
then it would allow the public to obtain the date that a letter was
sorted by Royal Mail, and hence calculate how many days it took for
Royal Mail to deliver the letter. This would allow for independent
calculation of Royal Mail delivery times.

The following factors are in favour of withholding the information:

(a) Royal Mail believes that disclosing the information would
undermine the commercial value of the information. This is
mitigated by the fact that Royal Mail freely discloses the
specification of both the "Customer Barcode (CBC)" and the "RED
TAG" barcode. The specifications of these two barcodes are very
similar to the information I requested. For example, the "RED TAG"
specification has a substantial level of detail concerning
Reed-Solomon Check Numbers. Given that Royal Mail freely discloses
these two specifications, it is not clear how disclosing two more
very similar specifications would undermine the commercial value of
Royal Mail's 'trade secret'.

Accordingly I find that the public interest factors in favour of
disclosure overwhelmingly outweigh the factors in favour of
withholding the information.

Two. I am not able to verify whether the information is exempt
under Section 41, because I am not aware of the conditions of the
license that Royal Mail refers to. I am about to make a separate
FOIA request to Royal Mail to resolve this issue. I would like the
internal review to consider the precise legal meaning of
"constitute a breach of confidence actionable by that or any other
person", and hence whether an exemption under Section 41 exists in
this particular case.

Three. Royal Mail's response did not address the "Route Code"
barcode part of my request.

Four. Royal Mail replied to my request neither promptly, nor in the
time period required by law. Furthermore, Royal Mail did not
explain the reasons for this, nor did they proactively inform me of
this (the first email I received from Royal Mail, informing me that
Royal Mail "are not yet in a position to be able to respond to your
request", was only sent after I informed Royal Mail that the lack
of a response from them meant that they were breaking the law).

Yours faithfully,

Josh Walker

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Josh Walker left an annotation ( 7 July 2009)

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/do...

is the separate FOIA request referred to above

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Royal Mail Group Limited

8 July 2009

Dear Mr Walker,

Re: Internal Review under the Freedom of Information Act

Thank you for your email received 07/08/09 requesting an internal review of
Royal Mail Group’s reply to your request for information under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000. This is receiving our attention and I will write
to you again once the internal review has been concluded.

In accordance with guidelines from the Information Commissioner’s Office,
Royal Mail will answer all appeals and requests for internal review of FOI
requests as soon as it reasonably can. This will usually be within 20
working days and in any case no later than 40 days from receipt of the
appeal.

In the mean time if you have any questions or would like to add any further
information for consideration then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

On behalf of Martin Rush
Head of Information Compliance
[email address]

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 148 Old Street, LONDON EC1V
9HQ

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From: Josh Walker

17 September 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

I understand that the internal review that I asked for 72 days ago
has not been completed yet.

I would like to know what the delay has been, as well as an
estimate for when it might be completed.

Yours faithfully,

Josh Walker

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Royal Mail Group Limited

24 September 2009

Attachment Walker Sept09.doc
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Dear Mr Walker

Please find attached a response to your request for Internal Review from
Royal Mail Group.
(See attached file: Walker Sept09.doc)
Yours sincerely

Colin Young
Freedom of Information Manager
[Royal Mail Group request email]

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 100 Victoria Embankment,
LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ

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Rick Seymour left an annotation (13 October 2010)

I think that there IS public interest in either

1) Requiring Royal Mail to print a date/time at which it took charge of the item of mail.

2) Requiring Royal Mail to allow the public decoding of the orange bar code to show JUST the date, time and (if present in the specification) the sender.

I totally agree with the writers ascertain that this barcode allows senders to "fake" the date at which the letter was sent.

This has implications not just under the Consumer Credit Act but also with government commissions such as the CSA.

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Rick Seymour left an annotation (20 October 2010)

I emailed PostComm, who emailed Royal Mail and I received 2 days later this......
--------------

Thank you for your email of the 14 October to Postcomm regarding the information contained in Royal Mail barcodes. As you are aware I was asked to look into your enquiry and respond directly to you.

I have taken advice from our Automation Engineering Department and our Freedom of Information Team in an effort to assist you.

The barcode you have attached has 64 bars and are used mainly for route codes containing outward, inward and delivery point information. They are also used in tag codes which are applied to letters that have not been successfully read by our machines on the first pass.

The code you have provided is actually a route code and as such there is no way to know which machine coded it, or what day/time it was first processed. Therefore we can assume that this item had a good printed address that was fully read on the first pass.

Tag Codes are only printed if our scanners don’t get a full address resolution during the first pass through the machine.

The information encoded in the Tag code is:-

- The 3 digit number to identify the Mail Centre that applied the tag code
- The 1 digit number to identify the serial number of the sorting machine within that Mail Centre that applied the tag code (This is normally = to 1)
- The date of the month that the tag code was applied
- The half hour Period within the day that the tag code was applied
- The sequence number of the mail piece within the half hour period.

- The 37 bits of data in the tag code are combined with a 3 bit checksum (modulo 8) to give 40 bits.
- These 40 bits are represented by a sequence of 44 four state bars after encoding using a Reed-Solomon mechanism for the detection and correction of reading errors.

A tag code will identify where an item was processed and on which day of the month – the code itself is unique for 1 month so does not need to identify which month it is created. However as the data is only used to sort the mail it is deleted when no longer required; we therefore only hold data on individual items for up to 6 days which is unlikely to be useful with customer queries related to the posting date.

The accepted way to determine when the processing of a letter has started at the Outward Mail Centre is from a stamp cancellation mark on the envelope. The stamp cancellation should state which Mail Centre first handled the letter, and the date/time of dispatch. Unfortunately if there is no stamp on the envelope there will be no way of knowing exactly when it was first processed. Royal Mail is not able to provide a public service which identifies when mail was posted.

Furthermore, the encoding and decoding algorithms are proprietary to Royal Mail but are provided in the form of software supplied under license. This information belongs to the third party licensor and is therefore exempt from disclosure under section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act. For these reasons Royal Mail will not be able to provide you with a methodology to extract this information from the barcode.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding issue, I hope my reply is useful and clarifies our position on this subject.

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